We created two responsive Word Press sites to provide expanded VOA coverage of the 2014 World Cup tournament for French- and English-speaking countries across Africa. Because of extremely limited bandwidth issues on the continent, we wanted to create a lean, minimalist site. Through the use of progressive enhancements and responsive design we added features to tailor the experience for phones, tablets and desktop browsers.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The World Cup project, was a major, multi-month commitment that began in January and ran through the post-tournament coverage in August. I led a team of designers and developers in the creation and maintenance of the French and English VOA World Cup sites. I also:

  • Led daily scrums to track the progress and help ensure we met our goals and deadlines.
  • Helped coordinate the daily editorial production with the French-to-Africa and VOA English newsrooms.
  • Captured and translated the needs of the journalists into the design and development schedule for the site.
  • Created original animations that were versioned in English and French.
  • Developed a JavaScript library using D3 to create responsive charts and graphics for the live match coverage.
  • Provided live game coverage and bespoke graphics.
  • Helped provide around the clock sysadmin support to ensure the sites and graphics continued to function throughout the month of games.
  • Pretended to care about sports for the seven months leading to the tournament.